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Reverse Domain Name Hijacking?
outlier writes: "Sit right back and you'll hear a messed up tale of what can only be called reverse domain name hijacking. Chip Rosenthal is being sued because the domain Unicom.com that he registered in 1990 (before the web even existed.) allegedly infringes on Unicom Systems, Inc.'s trademark -- filed in 1997! Never mind the fact that there are tons of companies using the name Unicom. The whole sordid saga is chronicled at http://save.unicom.com. Again, somebody tell me why the system isn't broken..."
Cruel.com said it best: "All Your Domain Are Belong To Us"
In 1990, Chip Rosenthal registered unicom.com for Unicom Systems Development. Eleven years later, Unicom Systems sued him for infringing a trademark it registered in 1997, relying on a unique legal theory involving a breach of the space-time continuum. (12-31)
Which is that /.ers seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of how the law works. An assumption is made that the law has to have a logical, moral, or at least actual physical basis. None of these things are true. The problem us "Intelligent", "Nerdy" people have with the legal system, however, is deeper than it seems at first. Most of us have been led to believe that the world operates according to a set of physical laws. Inside a courtroom certain physical and logical laws may cease to apply, such as that of cause and effect, gravity, or that of the law of the buttered side down. This can lead to comedic side effects, such a the legislation mentioned earlier, or people floating around, as well as truely stange and interesting studies in the exciting dynamic field of buttered bread flipping.
I'm a concientious
That's bullshit. What if USD only did local consulting and was not invloved in interstate commerce. Their trademark would not be valid for registration in the USPTO because they have no juristiction, but their trademark would still override the registered mark in the region it was used in by USD beacuse they were around first. Similarly, if some guy named MCDonald named a single resturaunt after himself before the chain "Mcdonalds" existed he would not be forced to change the name of the existing resturaunt after "mcdonalds" registered their trademark. The rules of domain dispute resolution involving trademarks are to simplistic to deal with the complexities of trademark law in the real world. This is the fault of the people who made the arbitration rules, not of the USPTO ar any similar organization. If USD brings this to state court in his local district he should win.
A corporation is really just a legal fiction with the rights of a person. Unfortunately, the wealth corporations tend to accrete seems to offer them better use of those rights (e.g., legal redress of grievances) than real people actually get. Is there some answer other than limiting the rights of corporations to sue?
OK, now I'm just going to ramble... I'll think about this more and post it to K5...
OK,
- B
http://www.bradheintz.com/
- updated
Another good example is the "Hard Rock Cafe."
The overpriced chain has sued a number of small restaurants in mining towns for trademark infringement, even though the mining town restaurants usually predated the "victims" by many decades.
The chain, having deep pockets, usually won by simply outspending the Mom&Pop restaurants in economically depressed towns. But I don't think it ever won in a case where the owner had the resources to force the issue into court. After all, these cafes took their name from "hard rock mining" (as opposed to "white metal mining," soft metal mining, et al.)
Since the restaurants didn't have a federal trademark on the term they couldn't stop the chain from using the same name, but they never sought that. But since the restaurants didn't engage in interstate commerce and clearly predated the national chain, the chain couldn't force the restaurants to change their name.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken